Elizabeth Holmes’ attorneys are reportedly working to keep the shamed Theranos founder’s texts and emails out of the courtroom.
With an upcoming trial in July for Holmes impending fraud processThe Silicon Valley Miracle Defense Team wants to prevent jury members from seeing malicious messages she has sent while she is scamming investors out of the millions. The Wall Street Journal reported On Wednesday.
Among the emails prosecutors want to use is one of Theranos’ lab directors, who wrote to Holmes to express concerns about the company’s technology, which was eventually exposed as a fraud.
“I feel pressured to vouch for results that I can’t trust,” he said.
The lab director resigned a month later after Therano’s president and Holmes’ former friend Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani told the report that he should be fired. He was replaced by Balwanis dermatologist, who only visited the laboratory occasionally and was not certified in laboratory science.
The texts paint a picture of a leader wanting to get out of control, including a detailed plan to create a cement walkway for auditors to enter the building avoiding areas where Theranos did not want them to look.
The prosecution would also like to include texts from Holmes to Balwani, in which they discuss the problems of Theranos and pray for good results in the inspections of the supervisory authorities.
“Basically we have to stop fighting the fire by not causing it,” wrote Holmes.
Holmes’ attorneys are challenging a motion from prosecutors saying they shouldn’t be able to point out startup founders who often exaggerate about their products to secure funding as a defense for their actions.
The attorneys had previously asked to exclude evidence from the Food and Drug Administration’s inspections of Theranos and several news articles about the company, including a number of reports in the Wall Street Journal, which helped expose its questionable practices.
The request that the jury keep the materials comes just weeks after Holmes’ attorneys argued preventing prosecutors from describing the luxurious lifestyle they lived while running the blood testing startup.
Her team wrote in a lawsuit that the wealth she has amassed as the CEO of Theranos “does not affect” allegations that she defrauded investors and patients who used the company’s allegedly fake services.
“The fact that Ms. Holmes had a particular lifestyle – one that corresponds to the lifestyle of many other CEOs – says nothing about whether Ms. Holmes committed fraud in order to maintain or maintain that lifestyle,” wrote the lawyers of the 36-year-old.
Holmes and Balwani have both pleaded guilty of false blood tests using equipment they advertised as revolutionary, but which they knew were unreliable and inaccurate. Balwani is reported to face separate trial from Holmes after her trial begins this summer.
